Beetle Restoration

 

The start of the restoration after the stripdown making sure that all the wiring and parts are carefully marked & noted, so I knew where to put things back together again, the first job was to remove the wings which revealed a multitude of horrors!

 

New metal had to be let into the inner & outer suspention mounts, when welding these structual points make sure the welding is of a good standard and is seam welded all the way around. If you spot weld any structual point, it will fail the m.o.t. I fabricated the repair sections myself, but I think that you can buy these sections.

 

The rear wheel arches are a very common rust spot on beetles, on this particular one alot of patch welding was needed. You will need a little welding practice before tackling a mojor resto like this, but as they say, practice makes perfect. Please note that welding joints should always be seam sealed after they have been ground down, this is to stop rust from getting into them.

 

This is where it starts getting complicated, the golden rule to remember when replacing heater channels is that they must be replaced when the body is still on the chassis, this is to stop distortion of the body tub. The first thing to do is take out all the bolts that bolt the floor pan to the heater channel under the chassis, then if you are replacing the channel on the passenger side, you will have to unclip the wiring loom and push it as far away from the channel as you can. Also you will have to disconect the wires at the regulator box, remembering to label them. To remove the channel, I found it best to first get a hammer and bolster and take out the welds that fix it to the A & B posts, then use a hacksaw to cut the channel right beside the A & B posts take out the centre section, you can then chisel & drill the spot welds that fix the remaining pieces. To put the new channel in, you will have to cut a piece of metal from the front inner wing where the heater channel bends, so that you can let it in, for more detailed information on how to do this, and any part of a beetle resto, it will be well worth your while in purchasing 'the Beetle & Transporter Testoration Manual' by Haynes, you can order it from any good book shop, and it will cost around £17.99. If your door pillar bottoms are rotten, this will also be a good time to replace them, just make sure that your door hinges line up before you weld them to the new channel.

 

This shows the replacement of one of the rear bumper mounts, nine times out of ten when you restore a beetle, you will have to replace at least one of these. I had to replace all 4! This is not a very difficault job, but I would advise you to leave the front or rear valence in place to use as a guide until you have fixed the new mount on, otherwise it will most likely not go on straight. In which case when you come to put the bumpers back on again, one end of the bumper will be lower than the other, and the whole vehicle will look totally wrong. Offer the new mount up, mark out roughly where you want to cut the old one off, then drill out the spot welds that hold it to the front or rear valence, then cut off the old mount with a hammer and bolster, or an angle grinder. Please note for strength, you must use a lap joint on this, which should be welded from both the inside and out, and don't forget to seam seal the welding joints once they have been ground down.

 

The drivers side heater channel is a little easier to replace, because you don't have the wiring loom to worry about. One other thing worth remembering is when you have to cut out the piece of metal in the lower inner wing, to let the channel in, once it is in, before you weld in the new piece of metal from the inner wing, make sure that you re connect the air hose that fits on top of the heater channel just where it bends, otherwise you will not be able to get to it again!

 

On very rusty beetles, the chances are that you will have to replace the rear shock absorber mounting points if you want to do the job properly. Needless to say on this particular 'rust box' I had to replace both of them. Again these are not particualy difficault to do, but you will need reasonable welding skills to do these, as with all structual points they have to be seam welded, which is one continuous weld all the way around. It is best to do this in short bursts so that the metal has chance to cool down, otherwise the metal will distort, again it is best to lap weld it both sides, you can do the outside first, and when you come to lift the body off the chassis, you can do the inside then. It will be much easier to get to. Again seam seal all ground down welds.

 

These sections which are found in the engine bay, were also very rotten. The worst part was that after phoneing around the suppliers, I could not locate new ones, so I had no choice but to fabricate them from a piece of sheet metal. I did this by first taking the measurements off the old piece, then cutting and bending the metal into shape by the aid of a rubber mallet & a workmate. incidently I took the runners that the rubber engine seal slides through, off of the old piece by drilling out the spot welds. Make sure that it goes back in exactly the same place, otherwise when you go to re-install the engine, you will have a gap where the section butts against the engine, also you will not be able to slide the seal in all the way round again, as the runners won't meet up.

 

This is what the engine bay looked like once I took off all the sound & fire proofing material. As you can see on the left hand side the picture, there is quite a large hole at the bottom. This is another common rust spot on particualy rusty beetles, it is easily remedied though, by cleaning off the surrounding metal and letting in a patch. Another thing worth remembering while I am on the subject of engine bays, is paint them before you put the engine back in, otherwise you will not be able to get to all of it once the engine goe's back in.

 

Once all the bumper mounts, heater channels, new front & rear valences and the great amount of patchwelding was completed, the body tub was now solid enough to lift off the chassis, (once all the bolts that hold it on were taken off). Your restoration manual will tell you were they all are. I would advise you to have 4 lifters ready to do this esspicially if like me you decide to leave all the glass in place! Even though my garage is quite a good size (25ft by 11ft), there was not enough space for me to put the body and the chassis in there, and still have room to work. I did not have anywhere else to put it, so I came up with the idea of making a dolly out of two single metal bed frames, upon which I welded in the cross members, together with strenghthening braces. I also put four pieces of 2 by 2 timber at each corner so as to stop the bed frames buckleing under the weight. I finished it off by putting four tesco like trolley wheels on each corner, (they wern't pinched from a tescos trolly honest)! They actually were purchased from clarkes the tool suppliers. All I had to do then was to purchase three scaffold boards to lay on top, use these as they are strong enough to take the weight. I then found that I could wheel the body tub in and out of my garage when I was working on the chassis.

 

Once the tub was off the chassis, it was time to restore the chassis itself. The picture that you see is what it looked like once I finished restoring it. To get it looking like this, I welded in two new full size floor pans, this is fairly straight forward, as you can put a mark where the old one's are before you cut them off. You can spot weld the new one's on, providing the weld is a good standard and they are no more than an inch apart. When spot welding make sure that both services are shiney metal, and that they are firmly pressed together. I have no pictures to show this, but the frame head was in a terrible state, I ordered a supposingly sound one off a company which shall remain nameless, paid about £150 for it (as at the time, a new frame head for a 1302 & 1303 beetle was going for about £400 new, but you can get them now for about £200 new). But when it arrived it was little better than my original one, so as replacing the frame head is most likely the most difficault thing for a home restorer to take on, because not only does your welding have to be absolutely spot on, everthing has to be lined up perfectly otherwise you will be in all sorts of trouble. So anyway, as by now my welding was quite professional, I decided to repair the framehead rather than replace it, you can get new framehead bottom sections for about £60, but as I am a cocky sod, and needless to say skint! I fabricated a new one myself out of sheet metal. incidently if you are wondering where to get sheet metal, one good place to start is your local engineering works, you can normally get offcuts by bunging the foreman a fiver or so, you will need quite alot of this during a resto, so you will be a familiar face there. So once I did all the welding to the top half of the chassis, I replaced all the brake lines, I had to buy a special brake pipe flareing tool for this, cost about £70 but it has already paid for itself, as I have now renewed all the old brake pipes, I also replaced all the shocks, handbrake cables and needless to say the brake drums, shoes, wheel cylinders, and bearings. While I am on the subject of brakes, don't make the same mistake as I did, I didn't replace the master cylinder at the time, because for one it didn't appear to leak, also new one's cost about £60, so I thought I would leave it and hope it was o.k. big mistake! Now that the body is back on the chassis, I found when I tested the brakes that it was indeed knackered, and it is much harder to get to now! Anyway once the top half of the chassis was completed, it was time to repair the bottom half, I found it much easier to do this with the chassis on its side so that I could get to everything. To do this I took all the wheels and the front dampers off (to lighten the load) and I just managed to lift it upon its side by myself without dropping anything! and im ow hercules! Once it was in this position, I did all the nessasary patch welding, and decided to replace the two track control arm bushes while I was there as they were so easy to get to. Once all the repairs were completed, I then protected the whole thing by brushing on two coats of black coach enamel (from Halfords), then two coats of underseal, followed by a complete dowsing of spray on waxoil! After all this work there was know way that I was going to let it rust again! When the chassis was completed, and back on its proper position with the wheels on, it was time to put the body back on the chassis again. Before you do this, make sure that you put on a new chassis seal that goes all the way around the edge of the chassis. To lift it back on again, I would recommend that you have six lifters if possible, I only had four, but putting it back on is harder than lifting it off, as you have to get everything lined up, which is very tiring for four lifters.

 

I decided to paint the inside of the engine bay with the same enamel paint that I did the chassis with, but in blue, you can get this from Halfords. Note the little plastic container in the top left hand side of the picture that is attached to the rear bulkhead. Because the engine hasn't been converted to unleaded, and because I didn't want to mess around with additives. This is a good compromise if you cannot afford to get the heads changed. The liquid is called 'Moreys Upper Cylinder Lubricant' it is a bit like redex to look at, and it works by having a flat looking 1ltr bottle affixed to a convienient place inside your engine bay, there you have a small hose that is connected to the little plastic receptical that you can see in the picture, from that you have a hose that connects to the point on the air intake manifold just below the carb, (you have to put a tee piece in so that you still have the pipe going to your air filter) all you do then is start your engine, and adjust the little screw on the little plastic receptical to what ever you think your m.p.g. is. There is a chart in the kit with the full fitting instructions on the settings. Once that is adjusted, it drip feeds into your intake manifold, when you are travelling and obviously stops when you do. All you have to do then is about every 3000 miles top up the main bottle with a bottle of moreys, you can get it from a few good motor factors, but I must admit is still quite hard to get hold of as not many people seem to know about it, I cannot understand why, because it is much better for your engine than this l.r.p. and you haven't got the hassle of using additives every time you fill up! The refill bottles cost about a tenner, not bad for every 3000 miles, and not only can you safely run your engine on unleaded, but it stops the build up of any water in the engine, and also stops the engine from cokeing up. And at a cost of about £30 for the kit, I think it is good value, if you want any more info on this, then please contact me on my contact page.

 

Incase you are wondering the colour that I sprayed it with is an austin metro blue, if you want to know the code, I can get it.

Well that is very basically that, if you want to know any more details, please don't hesitate to contact me, you can do this from my contact page. Remember this is only a rough guide which should be undertaken with the aid of a good restoration manual. Anyone can do this with a little welding practice, a bit of self confidence, the right tools, and a good resto manual. Good luck!!

Above is the finished product after 1 years restoration work, the pictures show her from different angles, and I have included a shot of the engine bay.

 

If at any time you are considering doing any spraying, there are a few things that you need to know. Firstly you will have to decide what type of paint you are going to use. There are various types, the one that the profesionals use today is 2 pack, or 2k as it is sometimes better known. the reason why the pro's use this today is for one thing it is very hard wearing, and another because the density of it is quite thick, it covers up minor imperfections better than say cellulose. But the downside is that it is very toxic being cyanide based, thus not suitable for the home restorer. before you could even think about using 2 pack paint you would first have to have an air mask, and not the ordinary mask that I am wearing in the photo, that is fine for cellulose but not 2k. secondly even with the right mask, you will still need a decent extraction system that will take the spray away from your garage, but at the same time would not come into contact with the general public. Thirdly your compressor will have to be man enough to take it, for example my compressor is 3 h.p. with a c.f.m. rating of 14, and with my pro gun, is ideal for doing cellulose, but not 2k. because when you use an air fed mask, you will have to split the air supply between feeding your compressor and your air mask. So you would need a very powerful compressor indeed to cope with it. I would not recommend a beginner to experiment with 2 pack paint. I use cellulose all the time on my resto's and as you can see by the beetle, the results speak for themselves.even with cellulose I would recomend that you wear a suitable mask with a disposable filter, and also an all over suit like me in the photo. this get up can be purchased for about £15.00 so it won't break the bank.

 

I chose to keep this beetle stock, because not only did I not have the money to make it a concours vehicle, i.e. with dress up parts and customisation e.t.c. All I wanted was a nice looking and sound beetle that will turn a few heads for my wife to drive around in, needless to say she is over the moon with it. The time spent on restoring it was approximately one year, the total cost including the purchase of the vehicle, and the tools that I had to buy, was about £2000. (I kept the price down by purchasing the parts & pannels from the various vw shows i.e. B.V.F.& Dettling e.t.c. you can pick up the spares cheap here, the only trouble was I forgot to ask for receipts from the stall holders, If you want to restore a vehicle and sell it, it would be wise to have these, unless of course you take pictures). Not bad for a fully restored vehicle that will hopefully last me another 30 years! unless of course my wife decides to sell it, she might do if the price was right! I just wanted to prove to anyone out there that was thinking of doing a restration to a beetle or a camper, that you don't have to spend thousends to do it!